Harry’s Place

Isn’t witchcraft still formally illegal?

Don’t think it should be as I love to cavort skyclad on a full moon night…

OT, but is this worthy of HP coverage?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article4421873.ece

Sikh girl wins right to wear bangle at school

That’s odd, but doesn’t strike me as being notably more odd than any number of other employers’ internet access policies: do the employees of Birmingham City Council really have a business need to access sites about atheism in their working day? Will it help them to be better service providers? I doubt it.

basis of “business” need)

(how I relished the day when I, my boss and my bosses’ boss, all of whom have obviously Irish, and in two cases Ulster, and clearly Catholic names had to send a rather aggrieved and urgent email to the IT department notifying them of our need to access websites that the new internet filter had banned as “terrorism”, “violence” and “racial/religious intolerance” on the grounds that our work vitally required access to them)

(Whereas…many religious bodies do provide social services, of various kinds…and as such their websites may have a good reason to be accessed. Obviously, were Birmingham City Council to block access to the website of a school or hospital or orphanage or whatever run by the National Order of Atheists to their employees, or whoever, that would be foolish, but presumably would then by overridden on the basis of business need

it’s hardly book burning, though, is it?

(and saying it is, it goes without saying, trivialises real acts of book burning, doesn’t it?)

(Some of the paras in the above comment may not be in the intended order. God damn the lack of a preview button)

Herman, snap. I was writing it up. Now published.

“do the employees of Birmingham City Council really have a business need to access sites about atheism in their working day? Will it help them to be better service providers? I doubt it. “

I anticipated this argument.

The answer is yes.

If it is accepeted that they need to access sites about Christianity, Islam, etc, then by the same logic… or elese ban everything.

What about doing research for policy documents? What about finding out about a wider range of stakeholders for a consultation?

Perhaps it’s their lunch hour.

There are many legitimate reasons why someone might need to access these sites.

The bottom line is discrimination. If there is no need to consult these sites, then there is no reason to consult Xtian and Islamic sites either. If there is a legitimate reason, then - whatever it is - can hold equally for these other sites.

Oh, what’s that I hear, the National Secular Society don’t actually run any schools or hospitals in Birmingham?

“Oh, what’s that I hear, the National Secular Society don’t actually run any schools or hospitals in Birmingham?”

Cretin.

Oh, what’s that I hear, the National Secular Society don’t actually run any schools or hospitals in Birmingham?

And I also hear that there aren’t any Hindu state schools and hospitals in Birmingham. Would you care to develop that line of argument?

The Onion is banned here. As are a whole lot of “political” sites…I’m rather surprised harry’s Place hasn’t been!!

The company I used to work for was embroiled for some time in a dispute with WebSense. WebSense sell web filtering software for companies which works like this: an administrator is faced with a list of main categories, which can be expanded to include sub-categories. In my case, we were an online retailer of mainstream underwear - the kind you will find in John Lewis. John Lewis fell under the “Shopping” category, but we had ended up as a sub-category of “Adult” - I believe it was “Lingerie and Swimwear”. Just about every employer automatically checks the “Adult” section, along with”Hate Speech”, “Occult” and so forth. So our innocent company was banned by hundreds of UK workplaces, including the company I to which I later moved.

We were eventually moved to “Shopping” after a lot of complaining.

What this shows is that websites can be at the mercy of whoever categorises them on behalf of web filtering companies. Perhaps atheist websites have been categorised as “Occult”?

What has me almost speechless about this is the Birmingham list of banned topics which proceeds “occult practices, atheistic views, voodoo rituals or any other form of mysticism” - hello Birmingham, atheism is not akin to occult practices, voodoo rituals or any form of mysticism. It’s the opposite. You must have atheism confused with its direct opposite.

Perhaps atheist websites have been categorised as “Occult”?

Well it will make the t-shirt imagery easier.

There could be entirely valid “business” reasons why the employees of Birmingham City Council might need to access websites concerning “occult practices, atheistic views, voodoo rituals or any other form of mysticism” in the course of their daily work. For instance, a Haitian family may be referred to Social Services. Or someone may require a secular funeral.

Giving BCC the benefit of the doubt, it could be that they’ve been sold some dodgy software developed by Fundies rather than this being a deliberate policy (unfortunately for workers and council tax payers, local authorities generally behave like lambs taken to the slaughter when buying this stuff). But - hey look at this page of the software company’s website: http://www.clearview.co.uk/links/hobbies_and_interests.htm

Perhaps if voodoo and atheism were reclassified as “hobbies and interests” then the problem could be solved?

BCC may not allow private use of the internet during lunch hour. Access to religious websites might be useful to avoid employees setting up meetings on religious holidays. If someone can provide BCC with a schedule of atheist holidays, I’m sure they’d be obliged.

Access to religious websites might be useful to avoid employees setting up meetings on religious holidays.

Or they could just buy a calendar?

I mean, that’s a pretty weak justification.

In its defense, the Birmingham Council said it had a “long-standing Internet usage policy for staff”.

What the hell IS their policy then?

It’ll be an semi arbitrary classification issue by the webfilter vendor, just what Mrs T said. Ring up their IT director and ask what webfilter they’re using if you’re that bothered.

I was rather hoping for a written policy, Jon d. After all, “long-standing” policies are usually written down somewhere. Wouldn’t you agree?

I’d hazard a guess that athieist sites come under ‘hate’. If they carry some of Brett’s more overheated militant atheist OP’s or similar material that might not be an entirely inappropriate category.

There’ll be a written policy… What it’ll amount to is ticking boxes with preloaded categories the vendor sets up like ‘adult’, ‘hate’, ‘gambling’ etc. Just like every other organisation with web access on it’s network.

Fwiw googling around I found almost the same story except concerning schools in Florida a few years back. Imo that’s even more worrying cos the kids are supposed to be using the web to research stuff, BCC employees are supposed to be fixing potholes.

But Jon, They’re claiming to have a “long-standing Internet usage policy for staff”. All I’m asking is, what is it? Has no one asked them? This has nothing to do with internet filters.

I’ve not seen the specific document but off the top of my head they’re legally required to have one so the odds are that it exists.

Well it might help determine if they’re religious cunts or just run-of-the-mill stupid.

It’ll be a meaningless glitch in the way the filter software is set up, not an anti-atheist conspiracy. Manchester city councils homophobic conspiracy was a disused website that nobody at the council was in charge of updating.

I don’t think it is because atheism might be classified as “hate” as that would exclude much of Christianity and Islam that preaches hate against gays.

I do think that this policy should be treated as serious given the misleading claims by religions on matters of faith and their continued promulgating them as truths. We have schools here now teaching that the world is less than ten thousand years old as science. Surely we need access to a robust response to this insidious spread.

What the specific atheism websites concerned MIGHT BE classified as could be quite different to what we think they SHOULD be classified as. See What Mrs Trellis wrote earlier - she seems like a person who’s had some experience of this sort of software (as have I) Some atheists are very keen on name calling, personal smears and anti religious attacks.

The vendors of web filtering software will tend to err on the side of caution when setting up their classifications for commercial reasons that even Brett could understand.

There are so many more important things to worry about than this. Or the case of the girl with the bangle.

That’a right, ag. Never mind fascists coming for other people … until they come for you.
What a jerk.